Commercial food producers lose more than 30% of their resources due to the lack of operational and biological insights from their production systems. German agtech hexafarms bridges the gap between sensing, plant biology, and real-time market needs to ensure our customers get the most out of their operations. It plans to do this by optimising crop production through AI models that reduce preventable losses.
Expansion plans ahead
hexafarms, an agtech leveraging AI to optimise greenhouses to power the future of food production, has snapped €1.3 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by leading European early-stage investors Speedinvest, which recently invested in QphoX and Necture, with participation from Mudcake and techstars.
This fresh round of funding brings the total capital raised by the company to over €2.5 million. It will enable the company to continue to invest in its AI and machine learning capabilities, increase the accuracy of predictions, and grow its portfolio of crops.
AI-based food optimisation
Founded in 2021 by David Ahmed, Huijo Kim, and Felix Kirschstein in Berlin, hexafarms develops software for indoor commercial food production. The company’s SaaS harvests data and leverages AI to monitor, control, and optimise greenhouses and vertical indoor farms in real time. Its AI models can forecast crop yield four to eight weeks in advance with accuracy as high as 95%. Their vision is to empower farms across the globe to run as efficiently as possible.
The hexafarms app serves as the window into production by providing growers with accurate, tailored information regarding harvest time as well as highlighting issues that can be addressed to optimise plant biology in the production process.
Serving large-scale facilities, the company leverages diverse data from its cameras and sensors to yield meaningful insights, enabling a 30% increase in seasonal harvest for high-end crops. The hexafarms app serves as the window into production by providing growers with accurate, tailored information regarding harvest time and highlighting issues that can be addressed to optimise plant biology in the production process.
Over the last six months, the company has tracked over 40 hectares of commercial greenhouses with its software. Currently, the company has the widest portfolio across Europe based on public information on supported crops and cultivars. As per the company, it is processing an estimated 9 million kilos of strawberries and tomatoes for this quarter.
Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, Partner with Speedinvest’s Climate Tech & Industrial Tech investment team, said: “The agricultural sector is in urgent need of innovative solutions to address the pressure from Climate change on commercial food production process and food insecurity. We have strong confidence in hexafarms and cannot wait to see them further develop their AI and machine learning capabilities and expand their team of experts. We are convinced that their app will transform commercial food production through optimisation and digitalisation.”
Anna Ottosson, Founding Partner at Mudcake, added: “Over 9 billion people will need healthy and nutritious food over the next decades. We can only achieve this by increasing the efficiency of our production systems. Using their unique AI-optimized software for commercial greenhouses, hexafarms will help ensure food security for current and future generations. We are proud to back them in that important mission.”
